CARVERS LIFE AND LITERATURE ELISABETH RARITY STRUGGLE WITH ALCOHOL - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ALCOHOLISM: THE RELATION TO CARVER’S LIFE AND LITERATURE

ELISABETH RARITY

STRUGGLE WITH ALCOHOL

• Carver began drinking during his first marriage while he was away on a trip with

a friend and met another woman

• With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous and multiple treatment centers he was

able to overcome alcoholism

• Carver described the nightmare that was his life before he stopped drinking:

It's very painful to think about some of the things that happened back then. … I made a wasteland out of everything I touched. But I might add that towards the end of the drinking there wasn't much left anyway. (Gentry 38, 77)

“CATHEDRAL”

• Alcohol (Scotch) and drugs (Marijuana) portrayed in the story:
• “She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine cabinet and then

washed them down with a bottle of gin.” (pg. 358)

• “Right then my wife filled me in with more details than I cared to know. I made a drink

and sat at the table to listen.” (pg. 359)

• “Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep.” (pg.

368)

“CATHEDRAL” (CONT.)

• The more alcohol was consumed by the characters, the less focus the story had
• Carver wrote ‘Cathedral’ after he had gone through treatment to deal with his

alcoholism, but the story shows his struggle of coping with his new cleanness

• Alcohol is what allowed the narrator and Robert to form a bond. They were able to talk

about Scotch and how they prepared/drank it

“VITAMINS”

• Scotch was also consumed, However, the story does not approach the theme of

alcoholism directly, but it was referenced.

• “I sat at the table with a drink until it began to get light out” (pg. 247)
• "It was a nothing job. I did some work, signed the card for eight hours, went drinking with

the nurses“ (pg. 245)

• “Drinking Scotch and milk with a sliver of ice." "I finished my drink," he says, "and

thought about fixing another one. I fixed it“ (pg. 247 & 249)

“VITAMINS” (CONT.)

• Alcohol was used as a way to mask the narrator’s unhappiness with multiple aspects of

his life. Mainly because his wife was unhappy with his drinking and it was taking a toll on their relationship which led him to have “the hots for Donna.” (pg. 249)

• More importantly, the narrator’s namelessness reflects his self-alienation which makes

him less of a person, and thus distances him from other people and shows this through his repeated and unself-conscious references to alcohol

CONCLUSION

• Carver ties the major theme of alcohol into his stories as it was a theme of his life
• Alcohol was used as a coping mechanism

WORKS CITED

• Messer, H.Collin. “Fleeing the Wasteland of Alcoholism: Alienation, Recovery, and Hope in

Raymond Carver’s Cathedral.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 37, no. 1, Winter 2012, pp. 43–

• 58. EBSCOhost.
• Gentry, Marshall Bruce and William L. Stull, eds. Conversations with Raymond Carver.

Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1990.